Evenement – Pagina 2

Gathering Earthseed

“The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.”
— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

Octavia E. Butlers baanbrekende feministische sciencefictionboek Parable of the Sower uit de Earthseed-trilogie (1993) begint op 20 juli 2024. In het licht van deze betekenisvolle datum initiëren kunstenaars Müge Yilmaz en Anna Hoetjes, in samenwerking met Marly Pierre-Louis en Fiep van Bodegom, Gathering Earthseed; een dagvullende bijeenkomst bij W139, voortkomend uit de nalatenschap van Butlers werk en haar literaire universum.

Gathering Earthseed markeert een symbolische gebeurtenis: het moment waarop Parable of the Sower overgaat van de toekomst naar het heden. Deze bijeenkomst benadert dit moment zowel als een rituele overgang als een praktisch moment om samen te komen – in gesprek en in solidariteit met elkaar – en om na te denken over nieuwe manieren van worldbuilding in onze eigen tijd.

Een interdisciplinaire groep van beeldend kunstenaars, schrijvers en culturele werkers, die geïnspireerd zijn door Butlers werk in hun eigen praktijk, zijn uitgenodigd om het programma vorm te geven. Door middel van workshops, gesprekken, lezingen, rituelen en een gezamenlijk diner zullen we manieren onderzoeken om nieuwe sociale realiteiten, alternatieve toekomsten en relaties met de natuur voor te stellen.

Door middel van feministische, dekoloniale en speculatieve methodes voor worldbuilding, proberen we onze huidige sociaal-politieke structeren te bevragen en schrijven we onszelf in de toekomst(en) die we willen zien. Gezamenlijk zoeken we wegen uit vernietiging, en creëren we toekomstscenario’s die we liever willen zien. Deze bijeenkomst, die altijd teruggrijpt op The Parable of the Sower, richt zich op feministische, queer, zwarte diaspora en dekoloniale praktijken.

De bijeenkomst vormt het startpunt voor de tentoonstelling Taking Root Among the Stars, die vanaf november 2024 bij W139 te zien zal zijn. Deze tentoonstelling toont het werk van kunstenaars en schrijvers die feministische sciencefiction niet alleen als thema in hun werk gebruiken, maar ook als een manier om uitwisselingen van radicale speculatieve strategieën te bevorderen.

Visuele identiteit door Sheona Turnbull.

Programma

13:00 Deuren geopend
13:30 Start programma (met introductie van Anna Hoetjes, Müge Yilmaz en Margarita Osipian)
14:30 Paneldiscussie, deelnemers worden binnenkort aangekondigd (gecureerd en gemodereerd door Fiep van Bodegom)
16:30 Workshops door James Parnell, Camille Sapara Barton en Chimira Natanna Obiefule (gecureerd door Marly Pierre-Louis)
19:00 Ritueel
19:30 Collectief diner en gesprekken
21:30 Einde programma

Panelgesprek: Taking Root in the Presence

Parable of the Sower van Octavia Butler begint op 20 juli 2024; een wereld waarin de samenleving volledig is ingestort, verwoest door een wereldwijde ecologische ramp. Butler schetst in haar roman een wereld die zowel beangstigend als herkenbaar is voor hedendaagse lezers. Lauren Olamina, de hoofdpersoon in Parable of the Sower, gebruikt haar kennis van de menselijke aard en het klimaat om te overleven. Ze brengt een gemeenschap samen rondom haar eigen religie, opgeschreven in “Earthseed: Book of the Living”. Lauren Olamina plant een zaadje, die ontkiemt tot een beweging die de mensheid zal helpen te overleven, en zelfs te gedijen door wortel te schieten tussen de sterren of “taking root among the stars.”

Tijdens dit collectieve gesprek, gefaciliteerd en gemodereerd door Fiep van Bodegom, nodigen we Sondi, Aafke Romeijn en Pirilti Onukar uit om samen Butler’s werk te bespreken door de lens van de praktijken van schrijvers, kunstenaars en vertalers. We zullen verkennen hoe Butler ons kan inspireren om de toekomst voor te stellen en gemeenschappen te bouwen in het hier en nu. Hoe vertaalt Butlers werk en “worldbuilding” zich naar andere disciplines, en hoe brengt het veranderingen teweeg in onze hedendaagse realiteiten?

Workshopprogramma: Seeds of Survival: Practices of Radical Imagination

Deze sessie, samengesteld door Marly Pierre-Louis, neemt Lauren Olamina’s ideeën van onderlinge afhankelijkheid en speculatie als uitgangspunt om na te denken over gemeenschappelijk voortbestaan. Marly zal de sessie inrichten in het licht van Butlers nalatenschap, waarbij radicale verbeelding centraal staat als methodologie voor Zwarte bevrijding: we moeten vandaag het morgen dat we willen zien beoefenen. Marly heeft James Parnell, Camille Sapara Barton, Fazle Shairmahomed en en Chimira Obiefule uitgenodigd om tijdens deze sessie parallelle workshops te faciliteren. Deze workshops houden zich evenzeer bezig met overlevingsstrategieën door na te denken over rouwverwerking, persoonlijke waarden en de herschikking van arbeid.

Workshop 1
Camille Sapara Barton
Deze workshop onderzoekt waarom het belangrijk is om te rouwen, juist in deze tijd. Hoe kunnen we onszelf en anderen ondersteunen tijdens het ervaren van moeilijke emoties en hoe kunnen we zorg geven op een manier die schade beperkt. De workshop begint met een somatische oefening, hierna zal er uitwisseling zijn en wordt er meer context geschetst, gevolgd door wat partneroefeningen. Er zal medicinale thee zijn – passiebloem en roos – die rustgevend kan werken en het zenuwstelsel kan ondersteunen.

Workshop 2
Values in Candle Light
James Parnell
Onze waarden helpen ons onszelf te verbinden met vrienden, geliefden en community-leden. Maar hoe kunnen we achterhalen wat het belangrijkst voor ons is? In deze workshop gebruiken we het proces van het schrijven van een lofrede (eulogie) om onze persoonlijke waarden te ontdekken. We bekijken voorbeelden van loftuitingen, schrijven ze zelf en voeren ze voor elkaar op.

Workshop 3
Partnering with Change
Chimira Natanna Obiefule
Oya is de middelste naam van onze hoofdpersoon. In een pak orakelkaarten dat ik bezit, is Oya – de Yoruba Godin/Orisha van de Stormen – een kaart van verandering. De wind van verandering is in beweging. In elk leven moet wat regen vallen… Als we weten dat de regen altijd heeft geregend en dat altijd zal doen in onze levens, welke zelfwaarheden kunnen we dan identificeren en hoe kunnen we onszelf gronden met die wetenschap? Wat zijn veranderingen die voortdurend plaatsvinden in je leven? Welke vormen van tederheid kunnen we toepassen door de storm te omarmen? Tijdens deze schrijfworkshop gebruiken we onze persoonlijke geschiedenissen als een spiegel voor het heden – we zoeken naar manieren waarop we de toekomst kunnen aanpakken door de taal en het verhaal van het verleden te veranderen.

Workshop 4
Rituals for Decolonization
Fazle Shairmahomed
In deze workshop word je uitgenodigd om een persoonlijk en gemeenschappelijk begrip van voorouders te ontwikkelen, geworteld in spirituele praktijken van meditatie, schrijven, lichaamsbeweging, dans, multisensoriële stimulatie, het maken van een altaar en groepsgesprekken. We zullen zowel de cyclische als de oneindige ruimte verkennen. De eerste is meer geworteld in het benaderen van voorouders, en de tweede als onderdeel van de Analemma bewegingspraktijk. Analemma is een astronomische figuur die we waarnemen vanaf de aarde als we de loop van de zon volgen gedurende een jaar, elke dag op hetzelfde tijdstip. In de bewegingspraktijk wordt deze figuur actief geobserveerd in het hart, de hara en hun onderlinge relatie.

Het doel is om een opzettelijke dekoloniale veiligere ruimte te creëren. Hier kunnen we begrip ontwikkelen over hoe gemeenschappelijke genezing eruit kan zien in een samenleving die gedeeltelijk nog steeds gevormd wordt door koloniale mechanismen. De geschiedenis en realiteit van gedwongen migratie zijn nog steeds zichtbaar in systemen waarin mensen gemarginaliseerd, onderdrukt en uitgesloten worden.

Je wordt voorbereid met oefeningen die geïnspireerd zijn door Butoh, Body Weather, Gnawa en Zar. Deze oefeningen brengen ons naar lichamen die niet meer bestaan, de ziel in onszelf en naar het gepolitiseerde lichaam waarin we bestaan. We onderzoeken hoe onze lichamen zich tot elkaar verhouden en hoe het transcendente bestaat in de aanwezigheid van een groep. We zullen werken aan een bewustzijn om in deze staat te kunnen komen, waarin je je eigen pad kunt vinden naar beheersen of loslaten.

In deze workshop staan Queer, Trans, Black/Brown, People of Color centraal, maar de workshop is toegankelijk voor iedereen die zich bewust is van de ervaringen van QTBPOC. Voorafgaande ervaring is niet vereist, maar het is in je eigen voordeel als je jezelf identificeert met de strijd voor dekolonisatie.

Voorafgaand aan de workshop wordt je gevraagd korte huiswerkopdrachten uit te voeren om teksten te verzamelen waarmee je mediteert over de relatie met je voorouders, en om items te verzamelen voor je persoonlijke altaar. Deze informatie ontvang je per mail na inschrijving.

Tickets

Tickets verkrijgbaar via de Eventbrite-pagina van Gathering Earthseed.

Alle tickets zijn uitverkocht. Bedankt voor je interesse!

Tickets*:
€15 voor het dagprogramma inclusief diner
€7,50 studententarief

* We bieden tevens community tickets aan voor bezoekers die niet de financiële middelen hebben de tentoonstellingen of context-programmering van W139 te bezoeken. Als je graag Gathering Earthseed wilt bezoeken, maar je hebt de financiële middelen niet, dan kan je ons contacteren via info@w139.nl.

* De tickets geven je toegang tot het gehele dagprogramma. Mocht je niet in staat zijn deel te nemen aan het hele programma, voel je dan vrij om enkel de onderdelen bij te wonen waarvoor je aanwezig kan zijn.

Over de deelnemers

Marly Pierre-Louis is schrijfster en community-cultivator in Amsterdam. Haar werk onderzoekt de belevingswerelden en overlevingsstrategieën van Zwarte vrouwen, en in haar sociale praktijk probeert ze ruimtes voor genezing en radicale mogelijkheden te creëren. In 2023 ontving Marly haar MFA van het Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. Ze is medeoprichter van Amsterdam Black Women collective – een gemeenschap van diasporische Zwarte vrouwen die hun dromen najagen door Europa – en mede-curator van de WILD; een serie pop-up boekwinkels en kunstervaringen geïnspireerd door de traditie van Black fugitivity. Ze is een eerste generatie Haïtiaans-Amerikaanse, een grote zus, een moeder en een stier.

Camille Sapara Barton is schrijver, kunstenaar en somatisch beoefenaar. Hun begeleidt rouwprocessen sinds 2017 en heeft hulpmiddelen en programma’s ontwikkeld om deze praktijk met anderen te delen en ontwikkelen. Camille is een Social Imagineer, toegewijd aan het creëren van netwerken voor zorg en leefbare toekomsten. Hun praktijk is geworteld in Black Feminism, ecologie en schadebeperking. Hun eerste boek Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community verschijnt in april 2024 bij North Atlantic Books.

Vanuit Amsterdam ontwikkelde en leidde Camille Ecologies of Transformation (2021 – 2023), een masterprogramma dat het maken van sociaal geëngageerde kunst onderzocht, met een focus op het teweegbrengen van verandering in de wereld via het lichaam. Hun organiseert evenementen en geeft consultaties, waarin hun trauma-geïnformeerde methodes, ervaringsgericht leren en politieke wetenschappen combineert. Camille houdt van planten, sciencefiction, muziek en dansen.

James Parnell is een in Den Haag gevestigde curator, facilitator, danser en zine-maker die zich richt op community building, gemeenschappelijk leren en de conflicten die daarbij ontstaan. Hij werkt vaak in gemarginaliseerde artistieke gemeenschappen en culturen, zoals queer communities, Zwarte gemeenschappen en onafhankelijke uitgevers.

Fiep van Bodegom is schrijver, criticus en vertaler. Ze is redacteur van Extra Extra Magazine en doceert aan de afdeling Creative Writing van ArtEZ, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. Ze publiceerde regelmatig over literatuur in onder andere De Gids, De Groene Amsterdammer, NRC en De Nederlandse Boekengids. Ze schreef het voorwoord voor de eerste Nederlandse vertaling van Octavia E. Butlers roman Kindred (Verbonden, 2022).

Sondi is een nieuwe mediakunstenaar uit Duitsland, geboren in Kameroen en gevestigd in Nederland. Haar werk is diep geworteld in haar eigen identiteit als een diasporisch persoon en dient als een kanaal om de ingewikkelde lagen van identiteit, toebehoren, eigendom en erfgoed te ontvlechten. In haar artistieke proces staat het concept worldbuilding centraal; het creëren van virtuele omgevingen waar herinnering, afkomst en verbeelding ontstaan. In deze virtuele droomlandschappen onderzoekt ze nieuwe manieren van zijn, waarbij ze de kracht van de verbeelding gebruikt als bevrijdingsinstrument.

Sondi’s werk beweegt zich voortdurend tussen virtuele en fysieke ruimtes, om het snijvlak tussen technologie en cultuur te onderzoeken. Door te onderzoeken hoe populaire media beelden en ideeën construeert en verspreidt, wil ze het dominante culturele narratief – dat onze perceptie van onszelf en anderen vormt – uitdagen. Haar werk reflecteert op de wisselwerking tussen het lichamelijke, spirituele en digitale wezen en beslaat een breed scala aan media, waaronder Game Design, audiovisuele performance, theater, muziek, film en educatie.

Pırıltı Onukar studeert momenteel af aan de masteropleiding Artistic Research aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Ze is de vertaler (van Engels naar Turks)van Octavia E. Butlers Xenogenesis-trilogie (Lilith’s Brood) en de Patternist-romans (Seed to Harvest), evenals van Nnedi Okorafors Akata Witch-serie. Naast vertaler is Pırıltı kunstenaar, theatermaker, olijfboer en filmregisseur.

Fazle Shairmahomed creëert dekoloniserende rituelen, performancekunst en dans. Hun werk is geworteld in voorouderlijk werk en intersectioneel activisme. Door het vormen van gemeenschappen creëert hun werk ruimtes waarin verschillende gemeenschappen worden uitgenodigd om gesprekken te voeren over kolonialisme, de manieren waarop kolonialisme onze geschiedenis heeft beïnvloed en de manieren waarop het vandaag nog bestaat. De multisensoriële benadering in hun werk daagt uit hoe we de wereld om ons heen waarnemen door middel van thema’s als dood, wedergeboorte, afkomst, erbij horen, koloniale geschiedenis en genezing. Sinds 2013 zijn hun ook een van de leden van CLOUD danslab, een door kunstenaars gerunde dansstudio die onderzoek en praktijk van dans, beweging en performance kunst in Den Haag ondersteunt.

Damani Leidsman is een kunstenaar, docent en producent die zich voornamelijk bezighoudt met muziek, beweging en performance. Als cultureel werker is hun praktijk geïnspireerd door orale tradities uit Afrika en de diaspora, helend werk en Afro-futuristische praktijken. Hun brengt muziek uit onder de naam Mushroom Mosis en onderzoekt momenteel manieren waarop artistieke productie kan fungeren als een ruimte voor genezing en vreugde. Bovendien is hun veganistisch, voortdurend hoopvol en op zoek naar kunst om hun leefruimte mee te versieren.

Aafke Romeijn is schrijver, musicus en journalist. Ze studeerde compositie aan het Conservatorium in Den Haag en Nederlandse literatuur aan de Universiteit Utrecht. Aafke is de ongekroonde koningin van de Nederlandstalige electropop en bracht na haar debuut in 2012 meerdere EP’s uit. In 2018 verscheen haar debuutroman ‘Concept M.’ en een jaar later volgde het album ‘M.’, de soundtrack bij het boek. Haar meest recente album ‘Godzilla’ kwam uit in juni 2021, en haar tweede roman ‘7B’ verscheen in hetzelfde jaar. Haar beide romans zijn dystopische politieke thrillers die scherp commentaar geven op het Nederlandse politieke landschap uit de jaren negentig. Samen met een collectief van Nederlandse muzikanten richtte ze BAM! op, een beroepsvereniging voor en door auteurs-muzikanten die streven naar meer transparantie en een eerlijke verdeling van inkomsten. Romeijn is politiek actief voor de PvdA en stond bij de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van 2022 op de PvdA kieslijst in haar woonplaats Utrecht.

A Reality Through Words and Images

A Reality Through Words and Images is een groepsscreening van experimentele documentaires, essayfilms en poëzie van Iraanse kunstenaars dat plaatsvindt op 8 Maart bij W139. Het programma introduceert direct of indirect ideeën over doordringbaarheid en entropie, het politieke landschap, het vrouwelijk lichaam, ontheemding en vernieling door tochten in familiegeschiedenissen. Met videowerk van Mehraneh Atashi, Amirali Ghasemi, Mahoor Mirshakkak, VidAmir en Gelare Khoshgozaran, wiens werken de radicale vorm van documentaire en de hedendaagse kunst omarmen.

Below you will find a list of featured artists’ and their work:

Gulistan (Rose Garden) | 06:40 | by Mehraneh Atashi, 2011

Based on a poem written by Saadi, a 13th century Persian poet: “The night was spent at the garden with a friend; such a pleasant setting with tree branches meeting above, as if pieces of crystal and the cluster of pleiades were hanging from its vines. In the morning, when the thought of returning exceeded the desire to stay, I saw my friend ready to leave for the city with a lapful of flowers, basil, and hyacinth. I said: “As you know, flowers do not last and unfulfilled are the promises of the garden. Men of wisdom advise against attachment to that which is ephemeral.” “So, what is to be done?” asked my friend. I replied: “For the pleasure of observers and the delight of those present, I shall compose the gulistan (‘The flower garden’) whose pages the autumnal wind cannot rend and whose vernal bliss the passage of time cannot turn to the woes of winter.”

Mehraneh Atashi (b. Tehran, Iran) Atashi holds a BFA in Photography from Tehran University of Art, IR and completed the two-year residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, NL. Mehraneh’s work unfolds between the time of the self and the time of the world. Through an excavation of memories, archiving and documentation of the self. Her works have been exhibited internationally.

Sediment | 18:00 | by Vida Kashani and Amir Komelizadeh, 2019

‘Sediment’ is a short docu-fiction film. In this film, which takes place both in Iran and the Netherlands, there is a focus on girls and women in two cultures—Iranian and Dutch—which provides the viewer another way to look at diversities. There is a sense of sameness, rather than individuality, that emerges, despite their differing social and cultural environments. But at the same time, the viewer is aware of their very real social, economic and cultural divides. The film is a visualisation of gaps and struggles in the stories and the upbringing of women which causes social injustices in both cultures.

Vida Kashani (b. Tehran, Iran) and Amir Komelizadeh (b. Tehran, Iran) have a collaborative artistic practice under the name ‘VidAmir’, that moves from Iran outward to places such as the Netherlands, where they have been living since 2011. VidAmir’s practice encompasses the practices of art, filmmaking, installation, and is united conceptually by interests in poetry, storytelling, archive, and politics which provoke new imaginaries that are equally bound to aesthetics. VidAmir centre collaboration in their practice; they have thus far completed several projects in intensive collaborations with musicians, philosophers, and citizens. Their work has been screened/exhibited internationally.

Beak of Lies | 06:05 | Amirali Ghasemi and Mahoor Mirshakkak, 2020

‘Beak of Lies’ is based on a poem of the same name by Amirali Ghasemi. It has been a while that he has been collecting his empty asthma inhalers, which are used in the film to visualise the poem. Mahoor Mirshakkak recorded the audio and video of the piece as Amirali Ghasemie re-performed the part. ‘Burning Things’ is an archival installation/expanded cinema project. It was developed and executed in the quarantine period as a self-assigned residency program at New Media Projects.

The gloomy and bizarre words emulate events surrounding us in 2020 besides the political climate that made it even worse. The calm atmosphere of the analog lab creates an immediate unbalance when the mechanical aspect of making Photograms (without paper) creates a passing moment: the words will only last a few seconds. Though it is enough for the performer to read them, the words will inevitably disappear into the void.

Amirali Ghasemi (b. Tehran, Iran) is a curator, media artist and a graphic designer based between Tehran & Berlin. Ghasemi has shown his photographs, videos, design works in various festivals and exhibitions internationally. As a curator he has been directing many exhibitions, workshops, and talks for Parkingallery projects, such as *Deep Depression (2004-06), Sideways (2008).

Mahoor Mirshakkak (b. Tehran, Iran) is a multimedia artist, filmmaker and sound designer who lives and works in Tehran. She holds a bachelor’s degree in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran University.

Royal Debris | 35:00 | by Gelare Khoshgozaran (b. Tehran, Iran), 2022

Located at 3005 Massachusetts Ave N.W. Washington D.C., the former embassy of Iran in the US has been shuttered for four decades. The vacant and abandoned building embodies a contradiction: it is a ruin due to its deteriorating condition caused, in large part, by the ongoing US sanctions on Iran, and it is privileged with an exceptional protection thanks to its ‘foreign mission’ status. Taking the building’s symbolic and material status as its departure point, Royal Debris is a rumination on borders, displacement and ruination through excursions into family history, architecture, poetry and contemporary arts.

Gelare Khoshgozaran (b. Tehran, Iran) is an artist, filmmaker and writer whose work engages with the legacies of imperial violence. She uses film and video to explore narratives of belonging outside of the geographies and temporalities that have both unsettled our sense of home, and make our places of affinity uninhabitable. Gelare has exhibited internationally and is an editor at MARCH: a journal of art and strategy.

Het programma is samengesteld door Vida Kashani, een onafhankelijke Iraanse filmmaker, schrijver, multimedia kunstenaar en producent, werkend tussen Amsterdam en Groningen. Ze heeft een master in Kunst en Design, richting moving image, van het Sandberg Instituut. Ze wordt vaak geïnspireerd door haar socio-politieke ontmoetingen en is daarom geïnteresseerd in het vertellen van onvertelde verhalen over onderwerpen als gender, vrouw-zijn en over inwoners van neo-liberale steden. Ze vertelt deze verhalen met poëtische benadering, voortkomend uit haar Perzische achtergrond.

In de nasleep van de opstand van Jina (woman, life freedom) heeft Vida Kashani een avond samengesteld met videowerk van Iraanse kunstenaars in de hoop enig inzicht te bieden in de situatie in Iran. Het huidige Iraanse protest is een reactie op de dood van Jina Mahsa Amini, een jonge vrouw van Koerdische afkomst die stierf nadat ze door de zedenpolitie was gearresteerd wegens een ongepaste hijab. In meer dan 160 steden is gedemonstreerd, wat de grootste golf van protesten is in jaren. Tijdens deze avond willen solidariteit creëren met de strijd van de ongelooflijk moedige Iraanse mensen die vechten voor gelijkheid, vrijheid en mensenrechten.

Tijdens de avond kunt u geld doneren dat gaat naar in Iran gevestigde NGO’s die activistische vrouwenrechtenorganisaties zoals Mehrafarin en Nedaye Mandegar ondersteunen.

Wilt u dit evenement bijwonen? Reserveer dan een (gratis) ticket via Eventbrite, zo weten we hoeveel mensen we kunnen verwachten.

Foto’s door Amir Komelizadeh.

The Wild: Zine Launch

The Wild is een serie pop-up boekwinkels en kunstervaringen geïnspireerd op de traditie van zwarte vluchtigheid, geïnitieerd door Tracian Meikle en Marly Pierre-Louis.

In een workshop zines maken op 14 november 2021, gefaciliteerd door Marly Pierre-Louis en Kimberley Cosmilla, met 11 man, verzamelden en maakte collages van ons materiaal uit zwarte literatuur en persoonlijke archieven, en creëerden zo routekaarten voor bevrijding. Alle zines werden in riso gedrukt.

Tijdens de launch zullen Kimberley en Marly spreken over de radicale geschiedenis van het maken van zines en het drukken van Riso printers en wat het betekent om verhalen te produceren en te verspreiden buiten de traditionele uitgeverijen om.

De zines van de workshopdeelnemers zijn samengevoegd tot een collectie die tijdens de launch te koop zal zijn.

Foto’s door Jeroen de Smalen.

Pizza’s For the People

We vertonen Hwang Kim’s Pizzas for the People (2013) en de documentaire video over de totstandkoming van de film. Naar aanleiding van de video organiseren we onze eigen speciale pizzaparty!

Noord-Korea is een van de meest cultureel geïsoleerde landen ter wereld. Om de nationale identiteit te beschermen tegen wat wordt gezien als mogelijk corrumperende invloeden van buitenaf, controleert de regering streng alle media. Toen de onlangs overleden leider Kim Jong-il echter besloot dat de beschikbaarheid van pizza voor de rijke politieke elite van nationaal belang was, leidde dat tot de opening van de allereerste Noord-Koreaanse pizzeria. Als reactie daarop liet kunstenaar Hwang Kim Chinese smokkelaars een instructie-DVD voor het maken van pizza’s Noord-Korea binnensmokkelen (aangezien DVD-spelers wijdverbreid zijn in Noord-Koreaanse huizen), waar deze zou worden beschouwd als illegale propaganda. Pizzas for the People is een kritische verkenning van hoe design op een speelse manier kan bijdragen en invloed kan hebben op een sociaal en cultureel niveau, waarbij een ideologische status quo subtiel wordt uitgedaagd.

Het avondprogramma bestaat uit een ‘make-your-own pizza party’ en vertoningen van Hwang Kim’s Pizzas for the People en de documentaire video over het maken van de film.

Real-Time History

In de loop van wereldwijde conflicten kan visueel materiaal, gegenereerd door getrainde en ongetrainde videomakers, mogelijk de enige documentatie zijn van vastgelegde gebeurtenissen. In hedendaagse tijden van post-waarheid en wijdverspreide manipulatie van mediaverhalen worden de betrokken poortwachters, verzorgers en tolken van dergelijke documentatiekluizen essentieel in het vaststellen van gerechtigheid, maar ook in het algemeen in het herdenken van belangrijke gebeurtenissen voor toekomstige generaties.

In de nasleep van het Syrische conflict zijn in 2020 een aantal Europese rechtszaken begonnen waarin aanklagers zich beriepen op het beginsel van universele rechtsmacht in het internationaal recht om personen te vervolgen die nu in Europa zijn gevestigd en die misdaden tegen de menselijkheid hebben begaan in Syrië. Deze ontwikkelingen maken het mogelijk dat videomateriaal bijdraagt aan de juridische follow-up van oorlogsmisdaden, ook al is dat niet in een Syrische context.

Real-time History is een serie videogesprekken die een kijkje neemt achter de schermen om perspectieven te verkennen van “makers”, “distributeurs” “analysers”, “archivarissen” en “juridische interpretatoren” die vragen stellen, bijdragen en waken over accurate en gedetailleerde interpretaties van open source beeldmateriaal. In het programma van vanavond gaan we de dialoog aan rond het Real-time History project – een lopend onderzoek dat artistieke methodes van subjectieve, beeldgerichte analyse gebruikt om videomateriaal in verband met het Syrische conflict naast elkaar te leggen en te interpreteren.

Het programma begint met een vertoning van de eerste iteratie van Real-time History, die in september 2018 werd gelanceerd als een 22 minuten durende video en zich richtte op videoreportages van een specifieke vermeende aanval met een chemisch wapen die op 7 april 2018 plaatsvond in de stad Douma. De meeste van de belangrijkste video’s in kwestie zijn gevonden op het webplatform Syrian Archive (www.syrianarchive.org), “een door Syriërs geleid en geïnitieerd collectief van mensenrechtenactivisten dat zich toelegt op het cureren van visuele documentatie met betrekking tot mensenrechtenschendingen en andere misdaden”. Na de vertoning zullen Foundland Collective (Lauren Alexander en Ghalia Elsrakbi) en Hanna Rullmann ons vergezellen om in dialoog te gaan over de nieuwe en zich ontvouwende iteraties van Real-time History, waarbij we kijken naar hoe archieven worden verzameld; de kracht en waarden die voortkomen uit de analyse van open source materiaal; en het belang van het openstellen, bevragen en omarmen van de complexiteit van collectieve verhalen.

Waarschuwing: Dit evenement bevat gevoelige video-inhoud die gewelddadigheden toont.

The Platform Presents Iran vs USA

Onderzoeker Nathanja van den Heuvel en Gabriel Fontana voerden op 29 november een gesprek over hun gezamenlijke onderzoek naar sport en queer pedagogies. Dit werd gevolgd door een live screening van de WK voetbalwedstrijd Iran vs USA. The Platform bemiddelde en ontregelde de vertoning via een live augmented visual overlay. Het voetbalcommentaar werd vervangen door een DJ set van twee DJ’s die tegen elkaar, en back-to-back draaiden: Moody Mehran, een Iraanse DJ en Claire Clover uit de VS. Het evenement was non-profit, en van elk kaartje ging 2 euro naar de in NL gevestigde, door vrouwen geleide Iraanse organisatie Jina Collective.

Foto’s door Elodie Vreeburg.

Refresh Amsterdam # 2

Bidnan3eesh – بدنا نعيش (WE WANT TO LIVE), 2022

Het neonkunstwerk met de Arabische tekst بدنا نعيش (Wij willen leven) is gemaakt door beeldend kunstenaar Susanne Khalil Yusef. Het ontwerp van het neon is gebaseerd op de handgeschreven tekst van Hamza, een bevriende kunstenaar van Khalil Yusef die in de Gazastrook leeft. ‘Wij willen leven’ is een hartenkreet die haar inspireerde tot het maken van dit kunstwerk. Onder de Israëlische bezetting van Palestina zijn de leefomstandigheden slecht en onveilig, vaak al een leven lang de realiteit voor veel inwoners.

Als tegenhanger van dit geweld maakt Khalil Yusef vrolijk ogende installaties, waarin zij gebruikmaakt van veel kleur en uiteenlopende materialen, van tapijt tot glas, maar ook keramiek en videowerk. Achter haar felgekleurde werken gaat echter een wereld schuil van dreiging, ontheemding en angst.

De installatie We Come in Pieces (2023) van Khalil Yusef is te bezoeken in het Amsterdam Museum. Andere versies van het neonkunstwerk zijn te zien bij ROZENSTRAAT – a rose is a rose is a rose en OBA Oosterdok.

Dit werk is onderdeel van de kunstmanifestatie Refresh Amsterdam #2, waarbij kunstenaars, geselecteerd door middel van een open oproep, werk maken rond Amsterdamse stadscultuur. Het thema van deze tweede editie is War & Conflict. Refresh Amsterdam is een initiatief van het Amsterdam Museum in samenwerking met meer dan 20 cultuurinstellingen in de stad. Kijk voor meer informatie op www.amsterdammuseum.nl

W139 hosts… 2023 – Week 7

Met de tweede editie van W139 hosts… zijn we verheugd onze tentoonstellingsruimte te openen voor een dynamisch zeven weken durend programma dat 55 makers en initiatieven de kans biedt om nieuwe projecten of werk-in-uitvoering te presenteren. Tijdens W139 hosts… betrekt elke week een nieuwe samenstelling van makers en collectieven de tentoonstellingsruimte, die omvormt tot een omgeving die voortdurend in verandering is.

Foto’s door Elodie Vreeburg.

Anahit Yakubovich
Data Harvest Selfie

Data Harvest Selfie is a durational interactive performance that physically visualises the extractive processes of surveillance capitalism from our simulated world of images, by transforming the gallery space into a model of a digital platform where visitors are confronted with their own observed image while they consume images themselves. Using the pre-internet medium of printed matter as well as the timelessly surveilled sexualised feminine body, I perform in the role of content creator, engaging in a cycle of selfie taking, each image being instantly printed upon capture, flooding the gallery space with my digital reincarnations. Dressed as a stereotypical bimbo I allude to how algorithms are influenced by the male gaze and how sexualising one’s own feminine body is a known method of generating profit, causing feminine bodies on the internet to change in accordance to the algorithms preferences. While the feminine body profits off of its adoption of male-gaze oriented algorithmic preferences, the platform that the body exists on profits simultaneously of all user activity surrounding these images by harvesting the data and mining it for valuable predictive information that will be sold to those interested in manipulating human behaviour.

Artist Bio:
Anahit Yakubovich is a Russian-American 22 year old currently studying at Gerrit Rietveld Academie. She loves to read theory, wear cute outfits and take sexy pictures for instagram. Previously she has been a sex worker, where many of her clients were powerful tech bros, they inspired Anahit to start researching tech ethics because she found herself profoundly disagreeing with many of their views which prioritised profit over human connection. Currently, in her art practice Anahit is interested in overthinking images, creating research based immersive installations and using her work to confront her past and future.

Image 1

Ulrike Möntmann
Parrhesia: The Risky Activity of Speaking Up and Speaking Out

OUTCAST REGISTRATION serves as an archive of all research projects by Ulrike Möntmann and documents their results. The data collected during all phases of the projects enable observations and comparisons to be made of the cultural, social, geographical, and political differences as well as the numerous parallels in the lives of the project participants.

Central to OUTCAST REGISTRATION and the projects are the biographies of drug-addicted women in Europe. In dialogue with the participants, the facts of their biographies are ascertained and put into a specific form with the aid of the Matrix Method, which presents their lives as a sequence of events and decisions, actions and reactions.

The conceptual architecture of the OUTCAST REGISTRATION is based on the study of different social spaces: the isolated space, the cultural space, and the public space. The situation and perspectives of drug-addicted women are made perceptible in terms of their social context in each of these spaces.

Both THIS BABY DOLL WILL BE A JUNKIE and PARRHESIA are gender-specific arts-based research projects focusing on an issue that western European countries have consistently ignored. Although women drug addicts represent “only” 4 to 14% of Europe’s total population of drug users and are thus considered by the legal system and society as a “negligible phenomenon”, around 65% of the inmates in women’s prisons are drug addicts. How can it be that this state of affairs leads to the marginalisation of this group and what has brought them into this precarious position?

Artist Bio:
Ulrike Möntmann has been realising multi-year projects with partners from art, science and politics in cooperation with drug addicts in European prisons, therapy facilities and reception centres. In interdisciplinary artistic research and practice, complex issues are discussed that arise from the cooperation of all participants. The aim of the investigations is to uncover facts and to identify concrete connections from different perspectives. This is not about confirming the asymmetrical relationships with the women affected which certainly exist or about discussing the measures of the organs of executive power; the aim is to uncover the conditions in societal systems that are unthinkingly taken for granted and accepted.

OUTCAST REGISTRATION is a form of intervention that requires reflection and commentary to reveal the conditions that are structurally entrenched in social processes and make them perceptible as public affairs.

The following are the two main projects devised and conducted by Ulrike Möntmann, in cooperation with incarcerated, drug-addicted women throughout Europe since 1998.

Image 2 & 3

Parcours – Chantal van Lieshout, Joke Beltman, Judith Reijnders, Peter Krynen
Take Me to the Pinball River

Like balls in a pinball machine that are pushed in different directions by each other, our collaboration creates movement in various ways. Based on our own interests and working method, we seek connection in the playful and inquisitive in various materials. Individual art objects and interventions in the space require attention in their own way. The course will work as a generator for our imagination and play, and then for those of the visitors.

The track arises organically during the construction: an obstacle course of works of art as a world full of wonder, stimuli and humor, where people roll out with a big smile, while they wonder what just happened to them.

Starting points for the course include chalk paintings on floors, pinball machines, cardboard parties, inflatable sculptures – just like the course that Beltman and Van Lieshout made in 2022 at exhibition space P–OST in Arnhem. A cakewalk at the fair and a walk in the park were the starting point for this surprising and large installation, with spatial and kinetic works and small videos.

Artist Bio:
PARCOURS is a group of artists of different ages with a playful, inquisitive attitude:

Chantal van Lieshout (29) uses humorous poetry to make the overwhelming inaccessibility of other worlds of experience and of the universe manageable;

Joke Beltman (59) is fascinated by the instability of the work process, failures, combined with glamour, and likes to play with the duality of attraction-horror, irony-seriousness;

Judith Reijnders (27) works from a love for playgrounds and investigates the dialogue with spaces and infrastructures;

Peter Krynen (71) seeks out the confusion in playful machinations and stagings.

PARCOURS grows, after each exhibition new artists are invited to participate, to build new trajectories in varying artist combinations.

Image 5, 6 & 7

Tatjana Macić
Leftovers Initiative

Leftovers initiative is a call into action for research and reflection upon the sustainability of exhibition-making in terms of materials and discourses, founded by the artist Tatjana Macić.

The aim is to engage within a broader art community to improve, inspire and envision more sustainable processes of the production of art. Climate change, child labour, waste economy, global migration and commodification of art production- are the urgent topics the art world is facing today. Exhibitions follow each other up in a certain fashion and speed, producing thereby exhibition displays and offering temporary focus. When an exhibition is over it is built down, and it is time for a reset. After a few days, a new exhibition emerges. The cycle is repeated. However, the urgency of sustainability and the nature of contemporary critical artistic practices expect more durable solutions. We aim to raise awareness about the sustainability of exhibition-making by organising exhibitions, workshops and public programme. Also, we hope to create a (digital) publication and a manual for sustainable exhibition-making, which will serve as an inspiration and guide for artists, art institutions, curators and art academies. We welcome collaborations and are open to flexible solutions and contributions.

Artist Bio:
Tatjana Macić is a visual artist and writer originally from the country that does not exist any more, and currently based in Amsterdam. She is deploying her artistic practice to blur the boundaries between visual art, theory, exhibition-making, education and language. Work was shown at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Venice Biennale Collateral Events and de Appel in Amsterdam. Tatjana is a lecturer of artistic research and exhibition making at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Image 8 & 9

Ayman Hassan and Ghenwa noiré
GAZA

A genocide is in the making – All eyes on Gaza – A genocide is in progress – All eyes on Gaza – A genocide is being applauded – All eyes on our humanity

Artist bio:
Ayman Hassan is a graphic designer and installation artist based between Beirut, Berlin and Amsterdam. Ghenwa Noiré is an audio-visual artist based in Amsterdam.

Image 10 & 11

Alvaro Ugarte
Curing the Institution
1hr participatory performance

The project “Curing the Institution”, taps into the notion of curing art institutions and their social and power structures in order to reimagine institutional hierarchical systems and their representation. By connecting both staff members and visitors at W139 into a series of “toques toques” – a common practice in Mexico, where collective electroshocks are offered in bars and restaurants as entertainment – the project aims to transform the psychic, mental and emotional state of the participants through a horizontal, collective exercise. The burst of electricity running through the bodies generates shared emotions and physical reactions, acting as a social glue between the participants. “Curing the institution” has been successfully implemented before at Hangar, Lisboa (2021), Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (2022), LagoAlgo, CDMX (2023) and HIAP, Helsinki (2023).

Artist Bio:
Alvaro Ugarte (1984, MX) Is a visual artist interested in analyzing mental structures and social behaviors. His artistic practice often begins as social experiences by staging scenarios or situations to function as devices of engagement between members of a given community. Consequently, the material outcomes, which are often unpredictable due to the nature of the actions and its collective dimensions, may take the form of sculptures, installations, actions, sounds or any other documentary format.

Image 12 & 13

W139 hosts… 2023 – Week 6

Foto’s door Elodie Vreeburg.

739
” House of ________ ” / ” ________ دار “

This story weaves around a real and public place in Morocco, a place that I can’t make recognizable, inhabited by people I can’t name. It’s a place among all places, incompatible and unsettling, which in its audacious and uncertain visibility proclaims itself in opposition to a hegemonic narrative. In my homeland, as patriarchal norms shape the essence of a hetero and Islamocentric society, a captivating tale endures and exists. Between the mosque’s sacred echoes and the cinema’s realm of possibilities, emerges a timeless haven – an old café known as the House of ___. Here, among oppressed and marginalized souls, torn between who they should be and their burning dreams, a queer community makes itself brazenly visible.

Based on a psychogeographic journey and ethnographic exploration, this project uncovers both tender and harsh realities, while sketching possible horizons of a place that dares to resist societal conventions.

The installation is both a translation of participant observations in the café and a sensory transcription of the experience. It erects a new reality by replaying the idea of image manipulation. An attempt to dismantle one reality in order to construct and unveil another.

Artist Bio:
739 is a visual artist and designer based in the Netherlands and Morocco. He works in the fields of information design, video-sound installations and videography. His work explores socio-political issues from an autoethnographic and psychogeographic perspective.

Investigating the interaction between culture, bodies and spaces, 739 examines how social and cultural landscapes influence individual identities. His design process takes shape from deconstruction of everyday practices, prevailing narratives and cultural objects, which are then reconfigured, reclaimed and recontextualized to reveal hidden and unmentionable narratives.

Le Bateau
B-Anchored

The graphic novel “Art Attack” and the movie “Captain Mermaids” are artworks inspired by the story of the sailboat “B, The Hundred,” built in 2021 by Le Bateau duo. The two works underline a reflection that fuels the duo practice: How can innovative, upcycled boat collective creation help narrate, understand, and twist sociocultural sexist behaviors and traditions?

The movie “Captain Mermaids” conveys footage from their sailing trip and interviews from B’s community that reflect their relationship with the watercraft. They produced a film embodying their research in its physical matters and the imaginaries it stimulates. The book “Art Attack” takes a similar approach, unfolding the imaginaries from one event of B’s history, when the boat was exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum. They created a gripping tale of a museum thrown into chaos by a boat’s unknown inhabitants.

Artist Bio:
Le Bateau duo (Laëtitia Delauney and Aurélia Noudelmann) have a strong curiosity for the conception of experimental boats, often materialized as hybrid spaces, which facilitate new dialogues of creation. Their research conveys the reappropriation of male-dominated crafts. They aim to rethink this patriarchal heritage through learning, skill-sharing, and proposing alternative designs. They are captain mermaids. From march 2024 on, they will be leading a participatory worksite to create a new boat, in a whale shape. Join and contact them on @_lebateau_ !

Mira Thompson
Who Cares? – On Receiving Care

Who cares? presents a collection of drawings, singer and performer Mira Thompson exploring the perspective of being on the receiving end of caregiving practices. She conveys intimate acts and encounters of personal care into sequential, comic-style narratives. She illustrates the conflicting feelings and complexities that come with needing care in her daily life, while countering simplistic thinking when it comes to giving and receiving care.

The scenes are portrayed from Thompson’s point of view both from how she sees it as well as how it might look from the outside. The drawings balance between cheeky and earnest, showing how both portrayals are ways of coping with the realities of a given moment. The viewer is brought to a seemingly ordinary situation of being assisted with brushing her hair in a public space, when someone comments ‘you are really a queen, aren’t you?!’ Other drawings give a glimpse into intimate moments of receiving care where there’s peaceful silence.

Thompson started making the drawings out of a desire to articulate these relational, affective encounters of being on the receiving of care that are hard to describe in words, or the grief that’s experienced from witnessing overt or internalized ableism. Asking for help is always considered difficult, but when this help is necessary and considered one-sided, it’s different. Having to relate to people who are providing care means navigating power relations – is it possible to ask for the care that’s desired or is that seen as asking too much? Can I truly express myself or does that mean a risk or loss of needed care?

Artist Bio:
Mira Thompson (Amsterdam, 1993) is a singer, songwriter and performer. Informed by the tradition of vocal jazz, she is drawn to narrative song and strong poetic and visual elements within music. During her time at HKU Utrecht Conservatory, she developed a fascination for the different ways in which the voice can function as an embodied instrument. Whether written, spoken or sung, Mira wields language to evoke deep and buried feelings with an earnest yet witty approach. In 2019 she released her first EP Festina Lente. Since 2008 she has performed nationally at Mozaïek Theater, Frascati, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, among others, and has toured in Germany and France.

Within her own artistic practice or that of others, cross-disciplinary collaboration is at the heart of Mira’s work. She writes on subjects of disability, language and activism to contemplate a more accessible world, and has published, both print and digital, in Metropolis M, Parool, Change Now, International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam, and One World.

Invested in embodied learning and disability justice, Mira brings into question notions of accessibility and its universality through lectures, workshops and consultancy to organizations, tutors, and students. In addition to providing private singing lessons, she teaches and researches for Amsterdam University of the Arts: Amsterdam School for Theatre and Dance, and DAS Graduate School. Mira is a member of Feminists Against Ableism. She also does access work including voice narration, image descriptions, live captions and transcription.

Manuela Benaim
Shapeshifting

Shapeshifting is an opportunity for humans to embody each other, as a tool for self discovery. We are souls trapped in a human costume, this is an invitation to blur the edges of your body and wear someone else’s skin.

Artist Bio:
I see humanity as a singular source of energy, separated by a perishable membrane we call Body. My name is Manuela, I was born in 1996 in Caracas, Venezuela.

I am a Sculptor and visual artist, I work with life-casting, sculpting, spfx, painting and garment making to make figurative art.

Anna Buyvid
No Backup for 601 Days

The main subject for the show and discussions is uncovering the notion of fear and enclosed spaces. It expands from the apparent global situation to more profound social and political aspects of limitations, propaganda and manipulation.

As a Ukrainian-born curator, I have a distinct understanding of the “War in Europe” context. And at the same time, I feel that the response to the situation is much broader than those personally affected by the crisis. How do we experience catastrophe away from catastrophe?

Artists try to touch several questions in a comprehensive environment, thinking together and reviling our fears. What is the way to change research’s scope to bring it to the different perceptions in terms of rapidly changing reality, especially now? What collectively are we doing? Or not doing? How can we redefine borders when we find ourselves in an enclosed space? Can we term them “transitional spaces for individuals”? And how artists’ responses will change the perception of admitting their limitations.

Artist Bio:
Anna Buyvid is a Ukrainian-born curator and researcher based in Amsterdam.

Her curatorial practice is set on the format of self-organizing and alternative exhibition solutions, and research is in sync with curatorial work on the notion of borders. Anna’s goal is to address what can be done through interventions to understand the functional impact and role of boundaries in today’s world, where there are no “natural” borders – all are social constructions delimited by governments and institutions.

“I consider curating as a discursive practice, inalienable from ideological and socio-political aspects. At the same time, research becomes a media, a category or a form, so new formats of its representation are a vital part of development.”

Anna Buyvid is the curator of No Back Up for 601 Days.

Artists: Stephan Blumenschein, Sonia Kazovsky, Hannah O’Flynn, Vladlena Sandu, Yaroslav Solop, Berkay Tuncay.

Juliette Hengst
‘De mythe van de Spierbal’ + workshop ‘How to Steekar’

The catchphrase goes ‘Think Smart Not Hard’. It makes me wonder how vital the supposed inherent difference in strength between sexes is when it comes to completing tasks that seem to require it. A person with no car and no ‘male testosterone muscle Strength’ of their own has to find ways to make do, and my artistic practice as a sculptor certainly does, for the collection and use of heavy found materials. My city gives me mattresses, couches, fridges and solid wooden doors, which with the right knowledge can all be transported alone.

As an AFAB person I know how it is to be expected to have no physical strength and have that shape your real capabilities, but now as a more-masculine presenting person, people are quick to assume that there is something different about me that gives me more strength than a cis-woman.

The difference in physical strength between genders and its consequences seems concrete, decided and unavoidable, but if you look closely it has very little to do with bare muscle power. The mysterious reality and perseverance of this idea is what I am playing with in ‘De mythe van de Spierbal’, and the ‘How to Steekar’ workshop.

Artist Bio:
Juliette Hengst (they/she) is a visual artist born in Oldenzaal and raised in the Middle east, recently graduated from KABK. The body and electricity, both ubiquitous and intimate, are currently the main subjects of her artistic practice. Through these matters they explore the conventions of danger, when danger is or isn’t tangible, and why people do exactly what is dangerous. Cutting up, playing with and rearranging the rules of safety codes, conceptions of rationality or reason, ancient or present storytelling, and scenes from her neighborhood in The Hague together with a philosophy of foraging for material birth Hengst’s work.

Public Programme:

Baba Boys X GarageNoise
Radioshow/pop up shop (12:00-19:00)

Together Karmel Sabri ,founder of streetwear brand Baba Boys, and Yara Said ,founder of the radio show GarageNoise, collaborate to curate an event which will amplify nuanced and overlapping themes of making noise, using humour to address political situations, and appropriating masculinity. The space will showcase collages by Yara Said and evocative 35mm photography by Karmel Sabri which both delve into the intricate politics of The Levant and masculinity, harmonizing seamlessly with the Baba Boys ethos. Baba Boys will curate a pop up shop in the space where people can browse and buy pieces from the collection. At the heart of the event lies a day-long radio show intervention during ADE, hosted by the charismatic Noise Diva, Yara Said, and streamed through Radio Al Hara. Collaborating with Yara’s radio show GarageNoise, we’ll amplify the voices of exceptional DJs from the Middle East, fostering cross-cultural connections and global engagement beyond Amsterdam. Think taxi music meets noise. Join us in cultivating our vibrant community through immersive experiences that spark dialogue, cultural exchange, and artistic appreciation.

Artist Bio:
Yara Said (1991) graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Damascus and holds a Master’s from Sandberg Institute. Next to artist, sound designer and DJ, she’s is creative director at Salwa. This organisation designs programmes for upcoming artists with a migration background.

Karmel Sabri (1995) received a bachelors of fine arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and holds a Master’s of art and design from Sandberg Institute. Karmel’s interdisciplinary practice is rooted in the theme of celebration as a method of resistance. She is an event producer, DJ, and the founder of streetwear brand Baba Boys.

Saturday 21 Oct

Zhana Assaad
Critical Care Reading
Workshop (14:00-17:00)

Zhana’s Tarot reading workshop uses as a method the idea of critical hope; the ability to assess one’s environment from a perspective of justice and equity — values which are highly present in the tarot — as one simultaneously envisions the possibility for a better future. The tarot, as a series of symbols and archetypes, encompasses the entirety of human experience. Interpretation is key and while the tarot can be used for divination, in this workshop it will be used as a form of self care while utilizing themes of critical care in order to shape a more hopeful outlook on certain negative connotations that might arise. Accompanied by an installation on the complexities of the western and eastern origins of occult practices, the workshop focuses on learning in detail the Celtic Cross reading structure. Then, up to 3 cards from various positions will be chosen and analyzed in relation to each other. This unconventional way of reading the cards opens up possibilities for a more intuitive approach as well as curious incidents. In a time when we yearn for more communal and understanding spaces, let us join and find new ways to take care of ourselves and each other.

Artist Bio:
Zhana Assaad (1996, LB/UKR) is an interdisciplinary artist whose mediums include textile and sound installations. Currently based in the Netherlands, her practice uses Islamic mysticism, individual cultural traditions and values and occult practices to create a belief-system that supports her in darker times. Alongside internal psychology, her research takes into account the complexities of inner experience, growth and personal politics while allowing entry into a world or myths, visions and rituals.

W139 hosts… 2023 – Week 5

Foto’s door Elodie Vreeburg.

Andrea López Bernal, Sophia Simensky and Leslie Lawrence
NOVELTELENOVELA

NOVELTELENOVELA is the spontaneous generation of a television soap opera at W139. Using a system designed by Leslie Lawrence, Sophia Simensky and Andrea Lopez Bernal, dramatic scenes of a soap opera are filmed so rapidly in this durational performance that the actors must receive their dialogue through a small earpiece, before immediately repeating them, as they do not have time to learn lines or repeat a take. Scripts for the performance are written by a large language model in AI based on ideas from a cavalcade of invited artists as well as you, the exhibition audience, raising questions of what it means to be possessed by ideological forces and non-human entities at the onset of the age of information pollution.

Artist Bio:
Leslie Lawrence’s practice is the constant recreation of his own television show accompanied by a permeable and fantastical meta narrative about the performance of its own production.

Sophia Simensky is an artist and set designer whose material research and narrative installations reflect contemporary environmental anxieties through the uncertain histories of colonial extractive processes.

Andrea Lopez Bernal is a performance artist and current Sandberg research fellow in the field of performance and artificial intelligence.

Birna Björnsdóttir, Milena Anna Bouma, Janina Fritz, Ayesha Ghaoul, Elena Giolo, Juan Sebastian Guerrero, Laura Canha Malpique, Peer Vink
Fountains Without Water

When energy forces to break the bonds that hold water molecules together, water evaporates. Water has dried up to leave room for imagination and playfulness, and what is left over are traces of water from the dried-out river in summer, bits of a cold iceberg in Antarctica, or the salty tears on our cheeks. Our fountains that once held water, have now relinquished it, allowing other substances to meander through their channels: wine, metal, salt, or even popcorn.

“Fountains without water” is a group presentation where multiple artists explore the idea of a waterless fountain. The show will consist of a series of sculptures and paintings that explore this theme. By disrupting the symbol of the fountain, we make space for something else, and by doing so explore different narratives. In this group presentation, we use the symbolism of fountains as a way to celebrate change, collaboration, and untried systems. The show is an invitation to imagine new stories together, by presenting different fountains, with everything but water, scattered in space.

Artist Bio:
This group project includes fountains without water by: Birna Björnsdóttir, Milena Anna Bouma, Janina Fritz, Ayesha Ghaoul, Elena Giolo, Juan Sebastian Guerrero, Laura Canha Malpique, Peer Vink.

Los Angles Collective
139-Angles

For W139 hosts, Los Angles Collective curates an extended gathering to showcase trans talent while providing a space for members of the public (trans or not) to appreciate the importance of trans-held spaces in the art scene. The gathering will consist of an ongoing exhibition featuring works by trans artists from diverse disciplines, in addition to a panel talk, performances and intimate readings.

Collective Bio:
Los Angles Collective is an Amsterdam-based, trans-led collective aimed at showcasing and nurturing trans talent. With a strong T4T-ethos, Los Angles Collective aims to not only showcase what our community has to offer, but also create space for the community to blossom, and for our talents to be nurtured.

Laura Grimm
Gift Receiver

Look around you, at the ceiling. Do you see those wooden beams, what trees were they made of and in which forests did they grow? Now look closer at what you are wearing. What fibres are in your garments and how many hands around the world have handled them? Which processes have the elements around you gone through before they ended up here, in this space with you?

This question is hard to answer. The origins, raw materials and processing methods of things in our daily lives are often invisible to us. In order to get closer to the physical origin of my own sculptures, I made Gift Receiver out of unprocessed sheep’s wool sourced from a shepherd in Rotterdam. After participating in the shearing, I cleaned, carded, and dyed the wool before moulding it into the large and colourful sculpture you see before you.

Gift Receiver is made out of sheep’s wool from Rotterdam, natural dyes (blue woad, orange madder, yellow weld), willow branches and boulders.

Artist Bio:
Laura Grimm is a visual artist whose sculptural practice is infused with elements from her background in fashion and textiles. She utilises techniques such as pattern construction and material production to create sculptures out of natural materials. Though these techniques are normally applied to mass-produced shapes which fit onto the human body, Grimm uses them to create unique sculptural forms which do not adhere to these rules at all.

Grimm lives and works in Rotterdam. Alongside three other artists she set up her own studio in Hillegersberg and now uses the large former garage in this building as her workspace.

Have A Good Dog Press and Friends
People I Care About

People I Care About is the first of a series of events that gathers friends of Have A Good Dog Press in a collaboration exploring the possibilities of sharing and collective learning through publishing. During a week-long program, Have A Good Dog Press will take over the space of W139 and accommodate talks, live-radio and workshops.

In collaboration with: Ran-Re Reimann (builder, designer), Ilya Stasevich (writer, artist, curator), Gersande Schellinx (bookbinder, writer, designer), Aske Hvitved (artist, radio pickle enthusiast).

Artist Bio:
Dasha Leo (they/them) graduated from the Fine Arts department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2022. Since the beginning of 2021 they have been running a small publishing company called Have A Good Dog Press with a focus on collaborative process in making. Their cross-disciplinary practice evolves around their interest in finding different ways of working together and providing a platform for others.

Espacio Estamos Bien
Kantoor Of Soft Aspiration

KOSA is a mobile desk that serves as a space for conversations, speculation, and companionship. Our aim is to create an environment that encourages artists, creators, and anyone interested in cooperation to come together and explore unconventional approaches to utilizing available resources. Using Espacio Estamos Bien (EEB) and W139 networks, we will promote the opening of KOSA`s office hours and schedule. Whether by appointment or walk-ins, the Kantoor will be available to all, with the faith of unexpected participants to come in. We invite participants to engage in conversations with us about their works, through casual dialogue, anecdotes, and even gossip. Through this, we can uncover the intimate details of each artist’s production. These conversations will be collected, along with artwork details, CVs, and documentation, to form the KOSA archive. The archive will be a space where different languages, formless artworks, unrelated themes, unknown artists, repeated and unseen themes coexist. In essence, this archive collects processes, opinions rather than knowledge, errors rather than truths, and differences of thought rather than agreements. It is a formality constructed from artists’ CVs and portfolios, an excuse to gather seemingly irrelevant information that can be woven into new narratives through its constant reconfiguration.

Artist Bio:
Espacio Estamos Bien is an art cooperative* and nomadic project space based in Amsterdam, that facilitates gatherings, publications, exhibitions, and other formats. EEB started by plotting around the idea of a new space in Amsterdam –not necessarily a physical one– that could provide an affective and supporting context. A space for those who do not belong in an institutional circuit. A space that is always changing, always moving, but always available.

EEB is an initiator of conversations and facilitator of situations.

*Autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to form a democratic organization whose administration and management must be carried out in a manner agreed by the members.

Public Programme:

Espacio Estamos Bien (17:00-19:00)
Kantoor Of Soft Aspiration
Vrijmibo

To celebrate the culmination of this process, we will organize a “Vrijmibo” during the public Friday event of W139 hosts, open to everyone who is curious and wants to hang out in a relaxed and spontaneous atmosphere. Attendees can learn about what happened during the open days of the Kantoor, enjoy karaoke sessions, and indulge in cocktails. We believe it is important to provide a space for enjoyment and celebration within our expanded practice, allowing people to perform differently and let themselves go.

Saturday 14 Oct:

Oscar van Leest & Danielle Huyghe
Studies in (dis)Orientation
1.5-2 hrs performance (15:00-16:30)

Oscar van Leest (1994, NL) is an artist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His practice is broadly oriented around the medium of sound, and is informed by the fields of sound design and experimental music, interaction and instrument design and spatial practices.

A series of sonic exercises with the aim to sonify the relation between the body and the physical space it resides in. Gyroscopic and spatial measurements taken from a device worn by a performer are processed and instrumentalized to sculpt sounds that are then propagated into the same space of performance.

Fariborz Karimi
Its just too much
Performance / Installation (13:00-16:00)

‘It’s just too much’ is the title of an installation and performance as a contentious of Karimi’s research in Amsterdam as part of my research on ‘Self-Censorship.’ This sharing will take place over five days in the space of W139, including a short performance for two days and a continuous installation of texts, sketches, and videos.

Artist Bio:
Fariborz Karimi, born in Tehran, Iran (1990), received his bachelor’s degree in Theater Directing at the University of Tehran (2009-2013). He founded Bohemi Theater Collective with his fellows in 2011 and since then they have produced numerous performances, residencies, and workshops as a collective. Since 2015, his works have been shown in Tehran’s public scene and at many international festivals including ITFoK Festival Kerala, BOZAR institute Brussels (Welcome to Tehran), ACT Festival Bilbao, and ITS Festival Amsterdam. Besides his performance career, Fariborz is the co-founder at Reconnect Festival (2020) as well as the founder and artistic director of Theatricultural Exchange Residency (2017-2019). Currently he is a Master’s candidate at DAS Theater School, Amsterdam University of Arts (2021-2023)..

Friday 13 – Sunday 15 Oct

Suntipede
The Birth of SUNTIPEDE

A three day manifestation as the debut of SUNTIPEDE. Each day, there are several spots open in which Queer and/or BIPOC can reserve a spot leading up to the debut, whether one applies individually or collectively. Depending on the ritual, the spots are reserved at a baseline of €75,-, although they do offer solidarity spots.

Artist Bio:
SUNTIPEDE does not operate as a conventional tattoo studio, but rather uses methods that are more true to pre-colonial tattoo traditions such as applying spiritual protocols. Each entangling our own practice, themes of nostalgia, food, mythology and folklore will be present within the markings. The people who approach our platform are asked to be intentional in receiving their marks. Through a conversation, the particular makeup of the tattoo will be decided on the spot, making each marking unique to the participant. For more information on what is possible, you can contact suntipede@gmail.com.